FROM A VERY YOUNG AGE, Amara Delaney Reid had exhibited deficiencies in her ability to communicate with others. Her mother, Eurydice, had rarely woken up to the sound of her daughter wailing in the early hours of dawn. Amara had seldom taken interest in spectacles such as rainbows as they arced across the sky, or the music that birds released from their pointed beaks. She often appeared to be lost in a world of her own, the fluorescent galaxies in her mind far more appealing to her than her actual surroundings. After two years of tracking Amara's behavioral patterns on a chart with two columns, the one on the right listed with how her older brother Kevin had acted at her age, Eurydice and her husband, Scott, scheduled an appointment with Amara's pediatrician, who contacted a doctor that specialized in neuropsychology. After meeting the peculiar girl in person, the doctor diagnosed her with a little-known neurological disorder called autism.

        PERHAPS IF AMARA HAD BEEN BORN in the future – like in 2002, maybe – she could live in a world that was more accepting of people with such diagnoses, possibly one where there was such a thing as special ed schools. Maybe by the 21st century, Sesame Street would include a character with ADHD or Asperger's or some other defect. But to her misfortune, she was born in 1967 - in other words, a time where people barely knew what autism was. Society viewed people like Amara to be defective beings that belonged in mental asylums. A significant number of parents refused to have their kids vaccinated out of fear that they would develop autism. Of the twelve million Adolf Hitler had murdered, a number of whom included Amara's Jewish family, the mentally disabled were among the tortured, their frail bodies cremated alongside Jews and others deemed inferior by the Aryan race. Even in America, the so-called Land of Opportunity, people like Amara were given no chance to build an identity outside of their labels.

        AMARA FOUGHT AGAINST HER UNIQUELY WIRED BRAIN throughout her years of elementary and middle school. She excelled in areas such as science and math, subjects based on concrete data and unchanging formulas. Sixteen divided by four would always equal four, and the earth would always orbit the sun. Systematic information came naturally to her, whereas she struggled to understand the ever-changing concepts of English. She also failed to read social cues from her friends, like the tone their voices would adapt to when they were sick of Amara bringing up past events, or the stress lining their facial features when they crammed for tests at the last minute. Even the teachers sensed that something about Amara was different. She was the only person in the entire school without a definitive IQ, and she stuck out from the crowd like a sore thumb. The principal scheduled a conference with Scott and Eurydice halfway through Amara's second year of elementary school that ended with her being expelled because, according to Principal Goodrich's logic, your daughter belongs in an asylum.

        AMARA ATTENDED FIVE SCHOOLS IN NINE YEARS. Her teachers always managed to uncover the secrets behind her numerous transfers, or her offhand comments while class was in session, or her inability to collaborate with others for group projects. No one was willing to provide her with the social and emotional support she needed to grow because, as mentioned before, society believed that people like Amara were incapable of facing the world's bumps and curves. Eurydice was disgusted by this logic. If Helen Keller had gotten by without the help of sight or sound, why was society so certain that her baby was unable to accomplish greatness as well? She remembered the day Amara was born; in the midst of the blood and tears, Eurydice had felt an immediate rush of love for the small creature in her arms and had made a silent vow to always cherish her, no matter who she turned out to be. She abided by that promise to this very day, despite her daughter's diagnosis.

        SEVERAL THINGS OCCURRED AFTER AMARA finished middle school. The car dealership Scott worked at closed due to aftershock from the 1979 energy crisis, Kevin graduated from high school and planned on taking a gap year to earn enough money to pay for his college tuition, and none of the high schools in Cleveland accepted Amara due to the number of schools she'd been expelled from. With a heavy heart, Eurydice sold their house (which was cleaned to the last particle to assure the family moving in that none of them would contract autism) and moved the family to a quaint town in Indiana called Hawkins. Scott got a decent-paying job at an auto shop, Kevin applied for a position at Melvald's General Store and developed a kinship with one of the employees, Joyce Byers, and Amara got into Hawkins High (after Scott paid a large sum of money for the administration to clear her record of expulsions, stating that they were out of her control).

        NOW FOURTEEN, AMARA HAD A BETTER UNDERSTANDING of her learning and behavioral patterns. Deciding that the only way for her to avoid being ostracized by her new neighborhood was to blend into the crowd and disguise herself as a loner, she drew up a chart of all the actions she needed to take. Raise her hand less often in math and science, force herself to become better at English, avoid school events and clubs, decline party invitations, and, most importantly, don't make friends. For the most part, her system worked. In contrast to her status as defective in Cleveland, in Hawkins she was invisible. Nobody jumped away from her upon seeing her figure in the hallways. In fact, nobody even knew she existed. Eurydice worried about her daughter's lack of social life, but Amara knew in her hard-wired brain that she was doing the right thing.

        IT WASN'T UNTIL HALFWAY THROUGH THE YEAR when she met the brilliant and sardonic Robin Buckley that Amara finally opened up a fraction. Highly perceptive, Robin noticed the way Amara itched to raise her hand in biology but then clamped her mouth shut, biting down on the chapped flesh of her bottom lip. She saw how Amara looked longingly at the other students as they milled together in the hallways, ranting about assignments they'd received. Robin confronted Amara one day after school had ended and asked if she wanted to be friends, to which Amara responded that she was too shy. Robin saw straight through Amara's façade and stubbornly refused to stop questioning her until she finally caved and revealed that she had autism. Robin simply smiled and said, "I'm gay," and their friendship blossomed from there.

        THE STORY BEGINS THREE MONTHS into Amara's sophomore year of high school. Her family has comfortably lived in Hawkins for the past year. Kevin is now attending college at the University of Indianapolis, still working at Melvald's to keep the family afloat. Robin Buckley is Amara's only friend, their bond forged by their inability to conform to society's high standards of normality. Everything is as it should be – until one day when Kevin brings home the news that he needs to work full-time because Joyce's son, Will Byers, had disappeared overnight. For a quiet town revered for its safety, Hawkins doesn't feel so secure anymore.

        WHILE MOST OF THE TOWN'S RESIDENTS ASSUME that the boy only got lost in the woods, Amara senses that something is wrong – especially when Barbara Holland goes missing only two days later. Amara believes that their disappearances may be linked, leading her to become entangled in a universe involving four troublemakers, a girl with a shaved head and telekinesis, and a mysterious lab that appears to be the source of these new obstacles. Armed with her uncharacteristically strong memory, data-collecting skills, and inability to move on from unanswered questions, maybe Amara doesn't have to hide her talents from Hawkins – or the world – any longer.

STARRING

ZOEY DEUTCH as AMARA REID

❝ It's funny how the one time I feel useful is when the world is ending. ❞

NATALIE PORTMAN as EURYDICE REID

❝ Everyone has their own flaws. It's unfair of the world to judge you so harshly simply because yours just so happen to be more profound. ❞

JOHN KRASINSKI as SCOTT REID

❝ Did we move to hell by accident? ❞

LOGAN LERMAN as KEVIN REID

❝ You shouldn't have to risk your life in order to prove something. ❞

HALLE BAILEY as SHAELYNN CAMPBELL

❝ Nobody is ever all that they appear. I certainly am not. ❞

MAYA HAWKE as ROBIN BUCKLEY

❝ Being an outcast is hard, but it's easier to get by when you're not alone. ❞

JOE KEERY as STEVE HARRINGTON

❝ You're like, crazy smart. That has to count for something, right? ❞

WITH

WALKER SCOBELL as WILL BYERS

AND

PAUL RUDD as MURRAY BAUMAN

THE REST OF THE STRANGER THINGS CAST AS THEIR RESPECTIVE CHARACTERS

AUTHOR'S NOTE: QUOTEV EDITION, 4/10/2020

my new story is here! yay, something i might actually finish!

just a heads-up: for those of you who don't know me well, i have autism. but unlike amara, i live in a time where i can receive the support i need. amara has no support and sometimes hates herself for being different in a time where people barely knew what autism or other neurological disorders were. if you have anything against people with special needs, kindly leave, please.

update as of december 2023: i want to mention that i created this and cast zoey deutch as amara back in 2020 not knowing that she'd deny the ethnic cleansing of palestinians that we see today. i don't support her in any way now that she's said what she has, but i still picture her as amara. however if enough people want me to change her faceclaim to someone else i will.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: WATTPAD EDITION, 6/1/24

i can certainly say that i had no intention of ever joining wattpad, at least until quotev decided to implode on us all. i'm still getting the hang of things here and i don't expect to get the same viewership that i do on quotev, but i'm still eager to welcome any new (and old) readers into the fold! i will most likely post my existing chapters one week at a time, perhaps more than once per week ;)

lots of love,

lydia